More Tokyo!

We spent the day with Håkan, Rica and the children

first visiting Meiji-shrine in the Yoyogi Park (by Harajuku station),

Tokyo's most important shrine. There were lots and lots of people there waiting to enter to throw coins for happiness. We never got that far because of the wide line up (I guess we won´t be happy this year). Instead we watched 2 wedding couples

in traditional outfits walking through the crowd which was an experience in itself. We also tried to spot some people on the outskirts of the Yoyogi Park that usually perform dressed up in 1950s outfits. We saw quite a few guys looking like Elvis Presley but neither of them were performing.

After Yoyogi Park we took the train to Shinjuku where we had lunch at an Americanized diner (I had pancakes and Ceasar salad) before heading to the Metropolitan Government building that's divided into 2 towers.

We went up to the 45th floor in both towers (it took 55 seconds with the elevator) enjoying the sunny view. The sun made it difficult to see Mt Fuji though. But we had a good view of the hotel where parts of the movie Lost in Translation took place as well as two used tennis courts on top of a lower building. We also got a nice view of my favourite building in Tokyo, the Mode educational institution cocoon tower.
Rica and the kids went home while Håkan, Rickard and I stopped at Shibuya to watch the intersection which is often pictured when Tokyo is mentioned. It was pretty crazy. We had coffee at Starbucks again only to enjoy the view of the intersection (we got great seats on the second floor).

I also bought 3 more mugs at Starbucks (I'm a collector of Starbucks mugs). And then I bought 3 more at another Starbucks on the way home. Usually I only buy one when I visit other countries ... but this time I'm going wild trying to fill up the empty space in my suitcase since we brought so much stuff here.

We spent the evening at home trying to book hotels for the 7 days adventure Rickard and I are leaving for on Wednesday. We only managed to book a hotel in Hiroshima for 2 nights, a hotel my sister Helena and her family stayed at when they were here.

Tomorrow will probably be spent in Ginza and we will hopefully manage to visit the Imperial Palace.

Good night and sleep tight...!

Arrived and settled in!

We have spent about 36 hours in Tokyo by now. The flight was more than fine, no delays, good seats, food and movies and our luggage arrived at the same time we did. We were welcomed to Tokyo in Swedish by one of the customs officials who after seeing our passports said "Tack så mycket".

Tokyo also welcomed us with sunny weather...it felt like spring but the wind picked up in the afternoon which made it a lot colder. A "friendly limousine bus service" took us to a hotel 3 minutes from my brother Håkan's place in a little bit than a hour.

All the food we brought, even the cheese and fish eggs, seems to have survived the flight. My brother was especially happy with the 10 bags of granola from the German food store Lidl.

We were quite yet lagged after not to many hours of sleep on the flight, especially not for Rickard who watched 3 movies, but since we arrived at my brothers by noon it was no point going to bed. After a quick lunch my oldest nephew Mattias showed us around the neighbourhood. I thought my brother lived in the suburbs but apparently he and his family lives pretty much in the city centre with lots of tall buildings around.

The afternoon was then spent looking through travel guides and catching up with my brothers family while my brother tried to work from home, which wasn't that easy with his 3 sons being at home getting into the occassional sibling fight.

All of us had dinner at a kaiten-sushi place (also known as sushi-go-around) close buy. The 7 of us ate 58 plates in total. Yummy!

Rickard and I went to bed by 8 PM and didn't wake up until 10 AM the next day. It feels like we had beeten the jet lag by then :o)

Today Håkan was our guide taking us to the electronic Mecca of Tokyo Akihabara and then to the Senso-ji Temple. I ended up buying a pencil and a CD by Madonna in Akihabara. The temple was enormous and very beautiful but most memorable from the temple was the orang-outang that on stilts jumped over small obstacles. We also had time for a coffee (latte) at Starbucks, but it wasn't as good as I remembered. Maybe that is because I usually have Frappucinos (cold drinks).

The evening was spent at home listening to a lot of my brother's favourite music...

Time to find the adapter so I can charge my camera for new adventures tomorrow!

Caroline (since Rickard still is being forced to listen to Håkan's music)

Time to fly away!

The Crazy Swede is on her way again! And not alone this time. I hope you will all welcome my boyfriend Rickard to this blog!

As you may have figured out the destination for this trip is not an English speaking country, it's Japan. Rickard and I have never been there before so we are quite excited. My brother and his family has lived in Tokyo for 3 1/2 years so it's about time that we visit.

We are almost done packing. 13 kg of our total amount of luggage is candy, granola and other food items that my brother is craving (see picture). This means that we will have a lot of room to fill with Japanese things :o)

All for now. I hope we will be able to update you on our adventure regularly.

From Kelowna, Vernon, Vancouver, London and Stockholm

The beach last Thursday was hot, very hot. Luckily the water in Okanagan Lake was chilling. Even better at chilling was though the nearby creek. A creek that was very much needed after Megan dragged me up numerous stairs to look at a waterfall.

In the afternoon I visited Darlene and her newborn girl. Darlene was my families exchange student in the late 80s. When we were done visiting I was dropped off at Megan's boyfriend Cam's place but since neither Megan nor her boyfriend was home I decided to go for a walk. It turned out to be a very long walk. When I after 2 1/2 hours found a pay phone and managed to dial the correct phone number (a 3 instead of an 8 in the end of the number) Megan and Cam couldn't believe how far I had walked. The fact that I for 2 of the hours only followed two roads says something about the town/city network over there.

After a shower and a good nights sleep (pretty good at least...the couch was kind of narrow) I started the next day with another Booster Juice. Megan got me hooked the day before and I took the chance to have another when I had the chance. We saw one of Megan's friends for a lunch dominated my scones and different coffee beverages before heading out to the creek from the day before. This time we weren't satisfied by just dipping us in the creek that wasn't that deep, instead we hiked up the creek until we found the waterfall and had a fantastic swim in the nice pool created by the powerful water.

On the way back to Cam's place I picked up my first bottle of BC wine (I had a plan coming to Canada t drink a lot of the domestic wine production but I failed) and two more Roots t-shirts. When Cam got off work the three of us headed to Megan's grandparents cabin by Mable Lake (about two hours drive north of Kelowna). We expected to see Ian (my host brother that I haven't seen for six years) and his girlfriend Danielle. They weren't there and didn't end up coming. Instead though we got to hang out with Megan's cousin, his wife and two children.

A very load thunderstorm woke me up the next day. When the sky had calmed down a bit I went for a swim in Mable Lake. I've only been at the lake once before but then I only saw it in the dark which means that I didn't really see it (I saw my first real bear driving out there that time though). Quite a walk was needed to be able to get my whole body under water!

After a nice and quiet morning and afternoon Megan, Cam and I headed into Vernon for the yearly pig roast at the Kidston's apple orchard. It is the owner of the orchard that arranges the pig roast every year to celebrate his birthday. Except the rain that was falling hard in the beginning of the party the evening turned out to be a nice one. And I finally got to see my big "brother" Ian. And I finally got to drink some of that BC wine!
Mike, Jan, Jaimie, I, Megan, Cam, Ian and Danielle.

I spent the night at Mike brother and sister-in-law's house. What a house they built! So beautiful. And the view was just fantastic overlooking Kalamalka (do not know if I got that right) Lake.

I had breakfast at the traditional breakfast place for the Kidstons in Vernon before heading for Vancouver and the airport together with Mike's cousin and Jan. It was a pretty exciting drive being able to watch Beautiful British Columbia, some of the Abbotsford airshow and visiting the Canadian-American border driving on 0 avenue.

Checking in my luggage in Vancouver I noticed to many Swedes on my flight (at least six of them). I don't want to see Swedes when I'm out traveling. Especially when I'm in my province. How dare they come there! :o) Air company!

This is the last I will write for awhile. I have no more trips planned for the moment except hopefully at least one trip to Glasgow this fall visiting my two Canadian sisters! I hope you have enjoyed my blog!

Vancouver to Kelowna

Jaimie, Nanamma and I started our drive to Vancouver already at 7:30AM on the 4th. We drove into Abbotsford 5 1/2 hours later where we met Megan and had lunch before going on a bit of a shopping spree in the SevenOaks mall. I managed to buy a carry-on bag and saved 99 dollars (When I packed in 100 Mile I discovered that I have more and heavier stuff to bring home and that I needed something bigger as carry-on luggage to put all the heavy stuff in). When we were done with the shopping we went on to Maple Ridge for gelato (Italian icecream) and then on to Port Coquitlam (PoCo) where we bought sushi for dinner before ending up at one of Megan's friends that lives there. We spent the evening chit chatting.

We went in to downtown Vancouver early on Tuesday for the appointment Megan and Jaimie had for their British Visa application. While they were being finger printed the rest of us went up and down Robson Street. The afternoon was spent on Main Street which had a lot of nice small clothing stores. I usually don't like shopping clothes when it is too hot outside which it was so I didn't actually buy anything except at Mountain Equipment Co-Op where I am now a lifetime member.

While Jaimie and Nanamma headed home for 100 Mile, Megan and I returned to PoCo where we had a nice and quiet evening with her friend. We started watching a movie, but I was too beat to finish it and went to bed half way through.

Megan and her friend slept in until two in the afternoon yesterday. I didn't quite sleep that long even though I had a few power naps in the sun/shadow after waking up at nine. Megan and I going to Kelowna that day ended up hitting the afternoon traffic. After some bad decisions about road choices we got out of the Lower Mainland around 6PM. Since we decided to take the scenic route at Hope we didn't arrive in Kelowna until after 10PM. It was a pretty amazing road though :o)

The weather is beautiful today and the plan is to hit the beach!

The yellow flower!

For your information. The yellow flower is called tiger lily!

Last day in 100 Mile!

So it's my last day in 100 Mile and I'm sitting inside updating my blog. Pretty sad, eh? Well, this might be my last chance to update you on my Canada trip. What have I been doing all week? Good question. I better consult my mini diary. Okey, now I know!

On Tuesday I spent the morning making Dumle muffins. Muffins with caramel for you that don't know what Dumle is. Then I had lunch with my Canadian aunt Arlene. She is not really my aunt, but she is of Norweigan descent and pretty much acted like an aunt when I was here for my exchange. After the lunch I spent time with Jaimie. We and a neighbor went on a long walk in bear country. I have a hard time relaxing in those areas, but we didn't even see one from a distance which I wouldn't have minded.

Wednesday was pretty quiet. I had lunch with Jaimie, but we sat behind a laptop each so there was not much of a conversation with it. I got to drive Jan's Ford home from town all by myself. It was fun! Great car! I went out for dinner seeing my old teachers Mr Ardiel (who was the first one that got me interested in geography) and Mrs Lamoureux (I hope I got the spelling right on the last one).

I had to set the alarm for Thursday morning. Jan and I were driving up to Prince George (4 hours north of 100 Mile) to pick up Megan who finally was done tree planting (not really, but she took a few days off to see me and to go river rafting). I got to drive half the way! Fun, fun, fun!!! It was great seeing Megan again! She was really tired though. After some shopping in PG we drove back south. After an evening of visiting and waxing of legs (Megan's legs were pretty hairy and disgusting). Since I had taken over her room we shared the bed for the night. She is a real blanket thief!!! Not many hours of sleep that night.

100 Mile isn't a large town but on Friday I managed to spend 4 1/2 hours there mostly watching Megan run errands. Then we went home, she packed and left for her river rafting. After Megan left Jaimie and I went for another bike ride out to the highway and back which is about 12 km with all the tiering hills on the way back. I went to bed early happy to have the whole bed all to my self again :o)

Time for some sightseeing! Jan, Mike, Jaimie and Jan's friend Donna took me to see three water falls and a beautiful meadow on Trophy Mountain. I didn't get to see the longest water fall in Canada though which I think is about 140 m, but I need to save stuff for my next visit! I got to see though one black bear on the road during the trip. I could have seen two if I didn't have a power nap! We also could have seen grizzly bears up on Trophy Mtn, but there was too much people up there which scared them away. They apparently like some of the flowers that grow up there.

I don't want to bore you with too much text so here are some pictures!

The gang on yesterday's road trip to water falls and Trophy Mtn. Here sitting by the edge of Canim Falls.

Me and Canim Falls in the background.
The meadow filled with flowers at Trophy Mtn.


Me in the meadow.

The third water fall of the day, and probably the coolest. I can't remember its name though. It started with S.

Kidston's wonderful cat Phoenix.

And the two Border Collies, Bella and Brie .

Another humming bird picture. I got three in there. You can just see the tail of the third one in the upper right corner.

Jaimie got offended when I didn't put her flower picture on my blog that I talked about in a previous contribution. So here it is! Beautiful!
See you later alligator! Or not!